Flora of New Zealand Series

Manuka or Kanuka. Tea-tree.

Type locality: Astrolabe Harbour. Type: P.

Shrub of diverse habit, or tree up to 15 m. tall or more; trunk up to 6 dm. or more diam.; bark brown, thin, shedding in long flakes. Branchlets sparsely to rather densely clad in appressed hairs when young. Lvs in fascicles of 3-5 or solitary, ± 4-12 × 1-2 mm., linear to narrow-lanceolate, acute, not pungent, glab. or sparsely silky-hairy when young; margins sts ciliolate. Fls 3-5-(7) mm. diam., axillary, on slender pedicels up to c. 5 mm. long, in 2-5-fld cymes to solitary. Receptacle narrow-turbinate; sepals ovate, acute, persistent; petals suborbicular, ± 2 mm. diam., shortly clawed. Capsules about equalling to slightly exceeding receptacle-rim, 2-4 mm. diam.

DIST.: N., S. Lowland to montane shrubland and forest, especially marginal, throughout.

FL. 9-2. FT. 11-6 (fr. sts not dehiscing till following year).